


Smoke and Ash

by SgtSalt



Category: Hannibal (TV), True Detective
Genre: Anal Fingering, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Still can’t believe that relationship had an existing tag, They’re practically the same character okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 10:07:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15168365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SgtSalt/pseuds/SgtSalt
Summary: "Everyone's always wearing a mask." Rust's fingers hook down again, and it's not quite the spot but Will can feel where they press towards the fingers on his perineum, and he breathes in harshly through his mouth. "But you see right through everyone's, right? Not even like open books. They're beaming headlights, and it's twilight everywhere and you see 'em coming from miles off. Bright, obvious, blinding. Distracting from what you'd be doin' otherwise."———Cross-over fic, established relationship. It’s porn without plot, folks, although it’s got plenty of emotions. Maybe too many. These men need therapists as well as a good shag.





	Smoke and Ash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecigarette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecigarette/gifts).



> Will Graham and Rust Cohle both: are homicide investigators; keep their beds in the ground-floor living room of their two-story homes; have insomnia and a weird mental process that makes them outsiders to coworkers; and are given gnarly stomach scars by their Big Case Baddies. Practically soul mates, so: here we are. 
> 
> The result of being asked to write this pairing by a writing partner.

The air is still for longer than Will expected. The only sound is Rust's cigarette ash filtering onto the counter top, ignored. 

"You wanna try that now?" 

Maybe it's just because he was waiting to reply for so long, but Will finds his mouth is a bit dry. "Didn't feel like bringing it up until I wanted to try it right away." Will's words are slow, brushing soft against his mouth on the way out. "This didn't seem like something I want to marinate in the anticipation of. I've done enough of that the past few weeks." The admission of how long he's been considering it rings in the space between them. 

Rust's eyes haven't left Will's yet. "On the bed?" They leave only to flicker down towards the counter, lashes short but heavy, and Will feels heat flush up his chest. "Or right here?" 

Will slowly stands up from the recently-added kitchen chair. On the carpet side of the counter, he places both palms flat against the surface, leans in until his weight makes his fingernails whiten. "I was thinking the bed would be better positioning." 

The cigarette rasps against the linoleum as Rust puts it out, eyes still on Will. "Well then." He moves sideways, making his way around the counter, and they're both still fully clothed in day-off flannels but Will can see the way his shoulders bunch with purpose. "Better get yourself over there." 

Will thinks he only says it as a suggestion to do precisely the opposite, because Rust sparks alive in the safe defiance of small arguments. 

Rust is a force up against him, controlled in a way no natural storm could ever be, and Will touches the back of his neck and feels the heat under his fingers. The kiss is chaste for one, two heartbeats, and then Rust is pulling away to grasp at Will's elbows, and Will rocks back a step on instinct. 

They make it the rest of the way to the bed in halting movements, tethered to each other by hands pushing at shoulders or hems of shirts. Rust noses at Will's temple, bends his head down until the flat planes of his cheek and forehead brush past Will's ear, and Will lets them fall back down onto the mattress.

* 

"No. That part's fine." Rust's fingers aren't cold at all, despite his whispered question. No, Will is stock-still and breathing as though his lungs are made of fiber glass because he's concerned about their _placement_. 

"Thought you said you'd done this before. On your own time." 

"I had." Will's knees are heavy into the mattress, bed sheets a wrinkled mess from there up to where his forearms and hands rest under his shoulders. "Just never got that-- deep in. How flexible do I look like I am?" 

Rust sighs, and Will feels the hot breath across his mid-back like a chill. "You're feelin' a bit tight, right now." 

_"Hah."_ Will was feverish as they started, but now his skin is cooling, goose flesh rising across his arms and up his thighs. The low gut-twist of discomfort sings a little higher, presses up towards his diaphragm, and Will wonders why, exactly, he thought it would be good to suggest this after only having tried it himself half a dozen times. And only even half-liking it during one of them.

"Hey." Even from behind, without eye contact, Will can feel the way Rust's gaze skips across the room before skittering across his shoulder blades, ducks across their pillows before fixating back on Will's left ear. His voice sounds from just behind it. "We don't have to. Not gonna hold it against you."

Will grunts and falls more heavily forward, lets his chin rest against the mattress, mouth almost covered by a wrinkled swell of bed sheet. "It's possible I suggested you bite off more than I could chew." The metaphor tastes poorly in his head, and his forehead wrinkles. "So to speak."

Rust's breath is still warm by Will's neck, heat with no pressure being passed across the large vein there. They're silent for several heartbeats, Will's own slowly climbing back down from where it had been when he was touching across Rust's chest as they figured out positioning. Rust has always been incredibly responsive to what feels good to him, the remarkable honesty that rings from him a reassuring force in the bedroom, and Will had started mouthing against his hip bone while they'd--

"You want me to pull out?" 

Will tilts his head, curls falling across the eye nearest Rust, barely able to see him between that and the angle. It's still enough. "No." It's only three fingers, wider than Will had ever gotten and easily an inch deeper, Rust's fingers longer and up to his third knuckles. Will can feel the press of his last finger against the curve of his ass, his thumb denting the skin on his opposite cheek. "Just-- try and move. In and out. I don't know about you fucking me," Will doesn't let himself falter at the phrase, just like he hadn't earlier, just steels his voice and eyes and lets the scorch of it burn his throat. "But I know I wanted to try you being inside me." 

It sounds ridiculous to his own ears. Will feels a false flush creeping up his neck, spurred by the twisting in his stomach and not the flagging erection that he hasn't bothered reaching for yet. But Rust's breath catches right by Will's ear, a sound Will doesn't place until it whooshes back out. Rust leans away over Will, who can only feel the way the mattress shifts under their collective weight to guess at where Rust is placing himself. 

"Shit, man." His voice smooths everything back out, interruption fading into the background. It vibrates low through Will's spine where Rust places his other hand across Will's mid-back, continuing to talk while his fingers slowly begin to move again. "Coulda just said you wanted to try me fingering you."

"Didn't think that's where this would be headed." It doesn't feel like a lie, but Will also can't find it in himself to chase after the fraying ends of his embarrassment. A shiver runs up his back at the unexpected adjustment of Rust removing a finger. The relief of it is almost as sharp as the burn from before was, and Will sighs against the mattress. 

"Thought that might help." 

"Are you going to have commentary for everything?"

There's nothing but silence for several slow shifts in and out of Rust's fingers. Will tries very, very hard to ignore what that motion sounds like. "Am I known for keepin' quiet?" His voice sounds different, like he's tilting to look in a new direction, and Will risks straining his neck to look behind himself. 

Rust is staring at where his fingers enter Will's ass. "Jesus," Will sighs, relaxing his neck and looking away. Rust's only answer is laughter that Will can only feel through the vibration from a hand placed on his back, no sound to it at all. 

Two fingers isn't a strain, it's a stretch. Will closes his eyes and thinks of trying this out on his bed at home after a shower, on his back with legs spread and feeling ridiculous to be a fully-grown adult man, lying on his arm and awkwardly trying to snake a finger up there. It had gone from uncomfortable to semi-nice by the last time he'd tried it, and if he reminds himself with every shift inward to _relax_ , Will can feel himself calming down into it.

"What made you wanna try this?" 

Will sighs, face pinching inwards, although he still intends to try answering. But Rust suddenly crooks both his fingers down while pressing in deeper, enough that Will feels the way Rust's hand prevents him from going in further, and he sucks in air too harshly to speak.

It's gone in the next instant, although the mattress dips and resettles and Rust's breath reappears across Will's upper back, Rust looming closer. 

"You did-- right there."

There's all but a mechanical whirring while Rust's breath continues to fan across Will's shoulder blades. Will can practically hear his internal monologue: anterior wall, three inches in. "And stop doing _that_. You're overthinking." Will huffs, coming up a bit higher on his forearms, stretching out his neck as he slowly leans his hips back. "--I can't believe _I'm_ telling someone else to stop over-analyzing." 

"Took the words right outta my mouth." Rust's other hand slides away from Will's shoulder, disappears. And then there's a new pressure right behind Will's balls, below the fingers sunk into his ass. Will jolts with surprise only for a moment, Rust saying nothing but continuing to lightly press on his perineum. Lips, leaf-dry but hot against Will's shoulder, drag across the line of bone. 

"Fuck." The first real heat rekindles, a spark that makes Will's cock hang a little heavier. He bites back against the instinct to lean his hips further back, but Rust's hand repositions, skirting fingers over where the muscle shivered with intent.

"Everyone's always wearing a mask." Rust's fingers hook down again, and it's not quite the spot but Will can feel where they press towards the fingers on his perineum, and he breathes in harshly through his mouth. "But you see right through everyone's, right? Not even like open books. They're beaming headlights, and it's twilight everywhere and you see 'em coming from miles off. Bright, obvious, blinding. Distracting from what you'd be doin' otherwise." 

Rust's crooked fingers brush against it a second time, and Will's breath makes the edge of the bed sheet flutter. "Shit." 

"I'm good at seeing people. Ain't _that_ good, though." Rust doesn't shift his fingers up or down at all, just keeps the petal-soft pressure down on the same spot. Gradually, he twists them back and forth, massaging against the same line of depth. Will's breath ratchets on the way out, catching at his throat in hot lines of pressure. "So you're gonna need to tell me if you want somethin' during this." 

" _Fuck._ " Will's hips shiver with repressed instinct again, angling downward in an accidental over-correct. Rust's finger feels momentarily painful instead of searingly pleasant and Will bites back another curse while he tries to relax away from the fog of mixed signals. "--Sorry." Muffled into his forearm. "I'm not-- good at asking for things." Any kind of things. Conversation, rides. An inch to the left, apparently. 

Rust is nothing but focused silence for long enough that Will thinks maybe he's been let off scot-free. The finger against his perineum presses up harder while the ones in his ass slow significantly down. An echo of the heat from before sings under Will's skin, burns slow from the base of his cock down to the tip. 

He swears, sweat beading off onto the bed sheet as he rests his temple there. He drips, heavily enough that he can feel it stretching from the end of his cock for several heartbeats before the pressure lets go, precome dripping to the mattress below. 

"You asking for somethin' was how this started." Will's eyes slide closed in embarrassment, face tightening with the truth of it. "Guess I realized it's nice to be asked for things by someone else who ain't lyin' to themselves about what honesty really looks like." 

The ember in Will's stomach flares, his hips inching backwards again, and this time Will lets them. The urge ripples back, his fingers stretch out and then dig into the sheets for traction while he arches back into it. Rust's fingers disappear up to the last knuckle. "Press down. Lightly." It's like speaking with fiberglass in his mouth at first, painful and sharp, but Rust listens immediately. His fingers are slow and soft and they move in such careful motions that he stills the moment Will's back muscles bunch. 

"There." Rust says, but there's the lilt of question to it. 

"Yeah. Back and forth, don't-- move up or down. Right there." Will's body is a live wire, so tense his back teeth hurt and his elbows are seizing and his shoulders are protesting the time spent at this angle. All the little aches echo through his bones, and when Rust presses down and gently rocks against the same small point, Will feels that core of heat glow a bit brighter. Not enough to blind him from the aches, but maybe enough to distract him. 

From the months spent getting to know Rust, Will recognizes that feeling. He chases it. 

"Your other hand." Will has to clear his throat. His hips are sinking lower and tilting up further, as they both adjust to this new movement. The angle of Rust's wrist guides Will's hips, knees pressing hard into the mattress. "Lighter with that one." 

The pressure behind his balls goes from almost too much to frightfully little. The lines of Will's shoulders deepen as he arches forward, lips parting and forehead pinching inward. " _Fuck_." It's not nearly enough pressure, and the promise and lack of follow-up has a flush blossoming up Will's neck. 

Warmth touches the back of Will's left calf, then his thigh, as Rust repositions closer and more upright. "More?" Is breathed into the space between them, not quite close enough to rustle Will's hair. He still shivers. 

"Not yet." Immediate and emphatic. 

Rust swears under his breath, low and throaty, and then Will realizes that he can feel his erection pressed against the back of his hip. Just at the bottom of his ass, flush with both his skin and with Rust's stomach, it can't be the most comfortable position but it's surely the one with the most proximity and friction. The unplanned pressure of it sends a tightening coil to drag down Will's spine.

The touch against his prostate is lost, but only to the drag of Rust's two fingers out and then back in. It's every bit as slow as his earlier massaging had been, heat gaining traction all along the way. Will's breathing deepens, forearms dipping into the mattress so he has enough balance to press his hips back into it. Each touch forward brings another brush against his prostate, another deep shock that gathers and builds upon itself. 

Will's forehead presses to the sheets, head tilted just enough to breathe out by his left shoulder. He watches his left hand grip the covers with self-aware wonder, the sensation of being _here_ and _now_ so much that it's an entire third presence in the room. Will rises up higher on his elbows, hunched low against his own forearms now, head bowed. "Harder." He finally says, voice as ragged and pulpy as he himself feels. Raw and _seen_ , all his honesty spilled forth and not hidden from but sought out. "I want to know you're here." 

Breath catches behind Will, the hand behind his balls goes still. But then Rust's fingers start fucking Will in earnest, pausing only at their greatest depth when Will feels himself stretch at the very opening, Rust's fingertips brushing against his prostate. "I'm here." Low, from just above where Will's ribs end. Blossoming across Will's mind is an image of Rust sinking in under them, tucking fingers up against the insides of Will's ribs and tugging them loose, one bloodied stick after another, the painful collection of truths that makes up any relationship. Except Rust doesn't blink or look away. He keeps staring, steam rising off Will's blood, and Rust's eyes aren't hungry or jealous or fevered. They just view and accept. 

Will bursts up onto his hands, elbows locked and straight, and he feels the way Rust has to arch up behind him to avoid being jostled off his perch, kneeling behind Will. "Shit, man." Rust's voice is closer now, his fingers not faltering even as he has to adjust the angle when Will's hips naturally align differently. It burns for two, three thrusts, and then it's as good as before, heat tightening in Will's stomach. 

"Touch me." There's no embarrassment in Will's voice, even as his self-awareness almost coalesces with every exhale. Rust's fingers drag across Will's balls, the pressure tugging forward and strangling a gasp from Will. And then those fingers close around his erection and Will's mouth falls open again. Precome that was already dripping is now being brushed across his head by Rust's thumb, massaged carefully into the skin. It feels like fire, like banked coals that Will thought might've gone out. "Fuck me. Like this. Come _on_ , Rust."

Rust obliges, a wordless but loud monolith behind Will. His breathing is harsh above Will, Rust’s weight shifting on the bed before everything tilts forward again and Will has to brace himself more strongly with his hands to avoid tipping back onto his elbows. It's rough, enough that now when fingers hit at that sensitive spot from before, it almost hurts. Rust's thumb spreads across the head of Will's erection, drags precome down the length of his cock, and as the friction is gradually smoothed out and Rust's hand can move faster, Will's breathing begins to unravel.

The backs of his arms burn. His shoulders ache. His knees are sore from sitting on them for this long, and his neck prickles from the base of his head down to between his shoulder blades. "Fuck, Will." Rust's voice is even but breathless. "Feels like you're gonna come apart right against me. Just turn to smoke or ash and blow away and I'll be all that's left here. Wonderin' how the hell I thought I was with somethin' so otherworldly." 

Will moans, heavy and low, head hanging down towards the bed, and it only encourages Rust behind him. The fingers inside of him are just as strong and fast as before, barely hooking down each time they reach in as far as they can, scraping against Will's prostate on every other thrust. Sparks of pain strike off of it, an undercurrent of pleasure sinking in afterwards, and Will shoves back into every one. 

One spark catches the rest of him alight. Will's next intake is higher, sharper, and Rust groans deep against Will's back. He must be bent in half across him from behind, flat planes of a forehead or cheek resting right above Will's kidneys, in the vulnerable spot between ribs and pelvis, where no bone protects the pulsing blood underneath. Will bows inward as the pressure reaches glass-sphere fragility and then shatters. 

He comes with a choked-off yell, a wordless thing that Will doesn't hear but that he can feel ringing in the empty space around them in the moments that follow. It sears through him like a white flame, devouring all awareness except of itself. 

Will's forehead is against the sheets again as he comes back to himself, forearms shivery and tucked nearby, hips sagging downward. 

Rust's erection is hot against his ass again, now, and Will becomes more aware of it when his movement causes sweat-tacky skin to catch and drag. He takes solid control back of his legs, still in a ringing aftermath of sound and light and sensation, and pushes back against Rust's hip. That's all it takes for Rust to plant one hand on the mattress and grab Will's hip in the other, and then he's grinding high up on Will's inner thigh. 

"Go ahead and fuck me there." Will's voice is steady in the aftermath, feeling like he was just rent apart and has now realized that before, he was always fearful of the wrong kind of breaking. The dissipation of fear has him rolling his hips back to meet Rust, thrust for thrust. 

Rust's moan is a ragged thing, low and frenzied. Will still doesn't look over his shoulder, just moves his knees closer together so his thighs can meet and press on Rust's erection from both sides. "Fucking hell, Will."

"I don't feel immaterial. Like I'll disappear into smoke or ash." Will can almost taste them on his tongue, these words borrowed from Rust's mouth. Rust's erection tilts up high enough between his thighs to hit against Will's testicles on most thrusts, and Will's breath catches at the oversensitivity of it. He doesn't try to shy away. "I've always had trouble feeling completely grounded in myself. My reality has always included accidentally slipping away into other people's heads. Seeing through their eyes instead of mine." The wall across from him swims in and out of focus, Will watching it through sweat-damp coils of hair.

"Will." Rust's voice sounds strangled, like he doesn't have enough air or might never have had enough. His hips hit up against Will's in a pattern that rapidly dissolves, growing jerky and instinctive. 

"But I don't get stolen into you. I can breathe next to you and know it's my lungs filling." The lingering smoke from what's happened still clouds Will's eyes, lets him see through to what actually matters. Fear isn't enough to hold back his words right now. "I felt so _alive_."

Rust doesn't say anything when he comes - he breathes in harshly, he grips Will's hip hard enough that Will can feel the line of each individual finger, but then his breath catches and holds and he's silent. Rust’s other hand presses hard enough against Will’s floating ribs to hurt, and Will has to re-brace himself against the bed to take the thrusts without losing his balance. 

The aftermath is as silent as a tomb. Will still stares at the wall across from himself, shoulders turned to a dull ache, lower back a twinge he can ignore, until Rust starts moving. Rust pulls away entirely, cold air rushing into the spaces he'd been pressed up against him, and Will lowers his entire body to the mattress before turning over. Come - not his - is tacky and slick between his upper thighs, drips down against the sheets as he lays on his back. 

Rust is sitting up, lips barely parted and pupils blown wide, staring at him from as tall as he can be with knees still sunk into the mattress. 

Will scoots himself up the bed until his head is resting on a pillow, pointedly ignoring the way Rust's breathing and posture suggests an animal ready to bolt. "Hey." Low, maybe too soft. Rust's eyes sharpen with something Will doesn't like, as if he's seen this script before and is recognizing lines. "Come here." Rust doesn't even look like he's moving to breathe, and he sure as hell doesn't budge towards Will. The first few sparks flare back up through the calm of Will's aftermath, shift the air in vapor-heavy swirls. "I didn't just let you put half your hand in my ass so that you could come on me and not offer to help clean it up." 

Rust blinks slow, heavy lids creasing and then finally the lines at the corners of his eyes give him away. He smirks down at his naked lap, laughter rasping low like dry leaves. The band around Will's ribs stops squeezing. 

Rust's undershirt from earlier lands on Will's stomach. Will goes ahead and wipes himself clean, because he doesn't feel like trekking upstairs to where the towels are kept, either. 

He doesn't end up needing to repeat himself, because Rust slinks in beside him, low and quiet like a stray cat. Will doesn't comment, just tosses the shirt over the edge of the bed and rolls towards that side. Their breath mingles, neither of them making eye contact. Will watches the way the pulse at Rust's throat gradually slows. 

On sudden instinct, Will reaches a hand out. His index finger presses on that pulse, light on Rust's carotid, and Rust's body stills when he stops breathing. 

"What're you doin'?"

Will looks up at Rust's face, the flat monastic planes of his forehead and nose. His eyes are obvious and avoided until the last possible moment.

Rust stares back, pupils still blown with decades of being suspicious, an animal equally used to being predator or prey. "I'm feeling that you're here right now." His will has to be buckled down on, gripped tight. Somewhere in this, Rust had grabbed ahold of Will's forearm, and it threatens to grind his wrist bones together. "That you're alive." Rust's eyes are a long void with so much on the other side - a richness separated from the rest by a huge vast nothing, one that Will sometimes thinks he'll never be able to cross. 

Right now, it feels a lot like the one Will's always ignored in himself, the void he's felt gradually pulling away, a vacuum filling with outside air.

“Are you going to ask me to leave?”

The silence wraps around them again. Rust lets his head rest properly back into the pillow, the tendons in his neck no longer standing out. “No.”

“Good.” Will turns over onto his back. He reaches an arm out based on pure instinct, silently invites. Rust is slow to accept, but he’s weighty against Will’s side as he settles in. “I don’t really feel like driving after that.”

“Mmm.” Rust agrees, and then he’s quiet, almost studiously so. Both of them stay up longer than they should, listening to the other breathe, only slowly letting go into sleep. 

Right before Will drifts off, he feels Rust finally reach out a hand for his own. Their fingers don’t link together, it’s too awkward for either of their wrists, but the warm press of a palm against his knuckles sends Will to sleep more reliably than anything ever has.


End file.
